STATUS OF WOMEN IN T.NADU IN THE 19th CENTURY - 'MISSIONARY POSITION' IS AIMED AT DEPRECATING HINDU SOCIETY !!

Whatever be the actual facts on the ground , Missionaries deliberately distorted and gave a deprecating account of  Hindu society. This could be garnered from their published narratives. -Missionaries thus had left evidences at the crime-scene.

In this post, the Protestant Christian Missionary, Bishop Robert Caldwell , first says that Women enjoyed a high status in Tamil society , they were NOT slaves. But  in the next paragraph he says that Hindu women had a servile status in society, bordering on SLAVERY. Thus he tries to obfuscate the reader with his narrative about Hindu religion, society & culture. Here it is evident that he is deprecating the VALUES inherent in ancient TAMIL/HINDU culture.

What is surprising  as well disturbing is the fact that Indian historians & social reformers of the 20th century, considered Missionary narratives as sacrosanct , and taking that as the Gospel

truth, 'fabricated' our historical past, unwittingly tarnishing the reputation of our inimitable past. New generation of Indians are thus made to believe that, there is nothing worthy of value belonging to the past.

Women/Mothers caring for  their husbands and children's daily needs and displaying respect towards other menfolk are deemed as SERVILE by the Missionary. A wife waiting or serving food for her husband, is construed as  women not

having equal rights with the men. The Missionary is trying to find fault with the Hindu society, conveniently forgetting their status in Britain. His religion ie Christian percepts are such that women do not have a soul or possessing only  1/360 th of the soul of a man. (Because they were made from the material, ie  a rib bone of man/Adam.) Thus they never can attain equal parity with men and

are mere material objects, inert matter as per Christian civilization. In Britain , women received the right to vote on the same terms as men (over the age of 21) only in 1928.- When a woman married in the 18th and 19th century in England and Ireland she had no rights. Source: L.M.Reid

Overall, the status of Hindu women in India were better than those of Christian women in Britain.

Excerpt from the Missionary Literature published in 1857, Year of the First Indian Mutiny  "It is a mistake to suppose that Hindu women are treated like slaves, if hard work is regarded as an essential feature of slavery ; for, perhaps, in no country in the world have women less work to do than in India. They live an easy, shady life, with little to do and less to think about; they are well fed, better clothed than the men, well hung out with jewels, rarely beaten when they don't deserve it, and generally treated like household pets.In their own opinion, they have nothing to lament as a class, but are as well treated as women could wish to be, and are perfectly content.On the other hand, if slavery means social degradation, Hindu women must be regarded as slaves; for not only are they denied equal rights with the men, but they are regarded as having no claim to any rights or feelings at all.

The Hindu wife is not allowed to eat with her own husband ; her duty is to wait upon her husband whilst he is eating, and to eat what he has left. If they have any children, the boys eat with their father, and, after they have done, the girls eat with their mother. Nor is this the custom among the lower classes only; it is the custom amongst every class of Hindus, in every part of India where I have been. When they are assembled together on any festive occasion, you never see the women seated on the same level with the men : if there is a dais or any elevated place, the men occupy the elevation, which is the place of honour, and the women squat cross-legged on the ground, or stand. If a party are going any-where on a visit, the men always walk first, the women humbly follow ; the wife never so far forgets her place as to walk side by side with her husband, much less arm in arm. The husband, it is true, is not forgetful of his wife's comfort; if they can afford it, a conveyance is provided for the female portion of the party, and the men are content to walk. Still, they generally take care to preserve their dignity by walking on in front, and the conveyance must keep behind. In the Telugu language, the language of fourteen millions of people in southern India, the relative position of the women is illustrated by the pronouns of the third person. There is no feminine pronoun—no word signifying "she"—in the ordinary spoken dialect! The only pronouns of the third person commonly used are vddii, " he," and adi, c: it." " He" of course denotes ''the lords of the creation," and to whom or what does "it" apply ?—to women and cattle and irrational things in general. Worse than all this is the circumstance that Hindu women are unable to read, and are not allowed to learn .[…]"

All Excerpts From

Caldwell, Robert, 1814-1891. “Lectures on the Tinnevelly missions : descriptive of the field, the work, and the results : with an introductory lecture on the progress of Christianity in India.” London : Bell & Daldy, 1857. iBooks.  -PAGES  139 & 140 of 185